Here comes the heat! And here come the higher energy costs associated with keeping your home cool. If your summertime utility bills are making you sweat, here are a few easy tips that can help you reduce your cooling costs without compromising comfort in your home.
Turn Your Ceiling Fans On
Often, the discomfort we feel in the heat is related to the stillness of the air. We can all think of occasions when a gentle breeze in the middle of a stiflingly hot day brought immediate relief. The same holds true inside your home.
By helping perspiration to evaporate from the surface of your skin, the breeze created by a ceiling fan promotes your body's natural ability to cool itself down.
So, although a ceiling fan won't actually lower the temperature in the room, it will help you to feel cooler. With a ceiling fan, you can set your thermostat a few degrees warmer and feel just as cool.
Program Your Thermostat
It's not necessary for your home to be quite as cool while you're asleep at night. And, of course, the same is true when nobody's at home. With a programmable thermostat, you can automatically adjust the temperature a few degrees warmer during the times when everyone’s asleep or when everyone’s away from the house.
The thermostat can also be programmed to restore the temperature to its cooler setting before you wake up or return home so that you won't ever feel the difference.
Create Shade Spots Around Your Home
Most of the heat energy that enters your home comes from the sun's rays beating down on your roof or streaming through your windows, heating up the air inside.
If you plant some shade trees or shrubs around the house, they will reduce the amount of heat energy that gets in so that it isn't quite as taxing on your air conditioning system to cool it down.
If the condenser unit of your air conditioning system is in the sun, you could improve its efficiency by as much as 10% just by planting a few trees or shrubs around it to give it some shade.
Add a Dehumidifier to Your AC System
The discomfort of heat in the summertime often has as much to do with the relative humidity as it does with the actual temperature.
By adding a dehumidifier to your air conditioning system, you can lower the humidity in your home to get rid of any muggy, uncomfortable feeling.
Additionally, since moisture-rich air tends to retain heat more than dry air, a dehumidifier will help your AC so that it doesn't have to work as hard to cool the air in your home.
If you're looking for more ways to make your home more energy efficient, call the pros in Boston, MA at Atlantic Heating & Air Conditioning at 617-566-6990.
